So we’ve hit the end of June and the year is now half done. I’m halfway through my challenge to myself in reviewing at least 5 albums a week. At the half the things I’ve noticed.

• While Shoegaze/Dream Pop revival is in full swing, besides a very misunderstood Asobi Seksu album… no ones taken the leap. But there’s still a new Mew, A Place to Bury Strangers and A Sunny Day In Glasgow albums on the way.

• The 4-track sound makes a comeback. From Indie Rock to garage rock to the avante-garde it’s Lo-Fi all the way.

• The MGMT copy cats descend!

• Stoner, Doom & Sludge Metal bands are absolutely killing it this year!

• After a stellar 2008, Thrash seems to take a step back with only good, but no great releases.

• For better or worse the Psych-Pop movement is about to hit the mainstream. Curious to see what that means in 2010.

• So far the only great hip hop releases are not surprisingly a new M.F. Doom album and a Clipse Mixtape

• Rusko, Caspa and Skream have spawned countless wannabee DJ/Producers

• Vampire Weekend fans discover Phoenix, ruin a good thing! J/K

• Cassette albums are the new 7-inches

I’m probably missing a bunch so feel free to add them into the comments!

It’s almost here. Comicon. San Diego Comicon. That wonderful, magical, mystical place where dorks rule, money talks, and women who love dorks have a valid excuse to act and dress sort of slutty.

But still dorky.

The wife and I were reminiscing about last year when I was accosted by a Hank Venture who insisted that he would “kill all you motherfuckers if one more person calls me Fred from Scooby-Doo” and we started searching for other Venture Brothers cos-players on Flickr. Boi-oi-oing. Boner Shorts paydirt.

The gal above has a ton of tasty dorkfits on her photostream, but also, there are quite a lot of other guys and girls who dress up as characters from the Venture universe. Which is totally sweet.

I also met a guy dressed up like George Michael Bluth one year:

Boner Shorts times two.

I’ve been collecting Star Wars since I was a pup, but ever since this whole “paying rent” and “student loan” thing intruded my life six years ago, I’ve had to cut way back. After several trials and errors and 40s, I decided to limit my SW spending on fresh vehicles and anything involving my favorite dude ever, R2-D2. The problem with collecting this overweight bucket of bolts is that so many of the newer figures are indistinguishable from one another. Telling variations apart on Hans and Kenobis is cake, but for some reason I always find myself in Target, holding what I think is the new R2, saying to myself “do I?” Because of this I’ve bought the R2-D2 Legacy Collection figure three times – changing the packaging didn’t help either. Thanks, Hasbro! I’m sure I could remedy this by printing out a checklist somewheres, but a part of me still gets off on thinking I stumbled on something I don’t have on the trophy shelf at home.

Ducktails – Ducktails (2009) [No Not Fun] // Grade: C+

I’ve been following Ducktails’ cassette only releases for a couple of years now with an almost morbid curiosity. I’ll be frank, I never could really get into a single one of them yet I kept buying into them. The 30 or so minutes of bedroom guitar noodling struck me more along the lines of a bored teenager messing around with a 4-track than serious experimental Avante-Pop compositions… But I kept listening. Why? Because buried somewhere in a handful of songs or moments I heard potential for something that I thought the next release was finally going to deliver upon. Many of these cassette recordings have been collected on the recently released Backyard compilation. But back to the album at hand…

Armed with some genuine buzz, Matt Mondanile finally shows glimmers of that potential with his first non cassette album, the self-titled Ducktails. These warm, hypnotic and tropical Lo-Fi instrumentals finally give a sense of satisfaction for anyone who’s endured through all the cassette warm-ups. It’s a shame that save for “The Mall” the rest of this album is merely instrumentals. Besides that and the fantastic ambient closer “Surf’s Up” the remaining 6 tracks are just begging for vocals.  The sort of hushed nonsensical singing that creeps in here and there to add some needed dimension and balance. So while rewarding… Ducktails like all the previous cassette releases leaves you once again frustrated at the potential being squandered.

Cannibal Ox – The Cold Vein (2001)

Vs.

Madvillian – Madvilliany (2004)

The Game is simple… if only one could exist which would it be?  What’s more important… personal relevance, cultural significance, or simply being the better album all other things aside? Choice is yours…

Jay Mundy’s got nothing on Alex Jones:

Gossip – Music For Men (2009) [Columbia] // Grade: B

Rick Rubin steps in and seamlessly mixes The Gossip’s earlier Blues based Punk swagger with their more recent (and less successful) attempts at Dance-Punk. The contrived and clunky nature of 2006′s Standing In the Way of Control has worked itself out into a confident, soulful and disco-tinged album that fits to Beth Ditto’s larger than life persona like a rhinestone boot over torn up fishnets.

The production is clean and accessible without ever toning down the band’s edge and most importantly rarely stumbles across the albums 12 tracks. Rubin wisely capitalizes on the band’s inherent strengths by taking a page from the Blondie playbook by fusing their seedy charm with some polished glitz in a strikingly organic way. Like the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s It’s Blitz, Music For Men is the sound of a band growing into themselves as pop stars… And while it is less adventurous than It’s Blitz, it is more evenly consistent.

Not to blow my load right away but…MINOTAUR! Last night’s episode kicked off right where the last one left us, and as Sookie storms out of Bill’s car and starts her 20 mile trek through the woods, she’s attacked by a fucking minotaur. We’ve already got a maenad, vampires, a telepath, a shape-shifter, and now a minotaur. I had no idea the mythology of this show gets deeper than a bird bath. Who’s going to be the Theseus of Bon Temps? In a bizarre coincidence, earlier on Sunday I finished reading the novel The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, so seeing the silhoutte of the minotaur in the woods certainly got a “no fucking way” from me. The scratches left by the minotaur cause Sookie to foam at the mouth and become paralyzed, not even Bill’s blood can help. He takes her to Fangtasia where the bizarro midget Dr. Ludwig performs a brutal looking treatment on her which causes her back to bubble. After she pulls some kind of poisoinous tooth/claw from her back, a healthy dose of Bill’s precious bodily fluids has her right as rain again. Bill looked crazy horny during this whole process. A revived Sookie reads the bartender’s mind and learns that Lafayette is being held captive in the basement. Eric agrees to let him go if Sookie will go to Dallas and track down the missing vampire Godric. Sookie agrees, but only if Eric throws in a cool $10,000 and allows Bill to join her. It doesn’t take a telelpath to realize they’re probably just going to hit up Vegas instead. Lafayette returning home and bawling just reaffirmed my opinion that Nelsan Ellis is the greatest actor on this show, natch.

Meanwhile, Maryann is getting ready to throw a party and rolls a joint that could choke a donkey. They have a heart to heart about Sam before the drunken orgy begins, but I don’t really give a shit. Maryann’s character as a ton of potential – especially afte the stunt at Merlotte’s last week – but they haven’t really done much with her up to this point. Her motivations are completely unclear to me. I hope they do more with her arc ASAP.

Back at the Fellowship camp, Jason points out to the Jesus-freaks that humans can be just as cruel as vampires (remember Rene and Jason’s girlfriend, Amy?). You go, Jason. Later that evening, Jason is dining with Fellowship leaders Steve and Sarah Newlin. As Steve is scolding all vampires as baby killers, Sarah enters and offers Jason some banana pudding and Steve says the series’ greatest line thus far: “Sarah desn’t whip out her pudding for just anyone.” A pretty gross double entendre, yeah, but still pretty funny.

Sam decides to go swimming in the bayou (it’s another world down there folks, don’t judge) and is joined by Daphne. She should be working on her waitressing skills if you ask me. When Daphne removes her shirt, we see clawmarks much like the ones Sookie suffered earlier. Awesome.

So, what’s up with the minotaur? There was a suspicious cut in the episode that may be a clue. As Pam and Chow are reporting to Eric about the monster in the woods and they state that it left human footprints and smelled gnarly. Cut to: Maryann’s caged pig. Does Maryann have some kind of shapeshifting pig-hybrid at her command? That would atleast help me appreciate Maryann a little more.

I have decided to enter the world of Blogin with a few of my favorite Youtube wrestling videos (yes, I am a huge loser):

This is perhaps the greatest wrestling match of the modern age. In it Necro Butcher (the show stealer from last year’s “The Wrestler“) battles the Samoan Submission Machine; a match that blurs the line between real and fake.

This should be watched if only for the part one minute in when one of the the dudes from Insane Clown Posse slips off a bus and lands on a garbage can… kind of fitting.

Legit psycho and convicted felon, New Jack gets revenge on a fellow wrestler for a spot that went wrong three years earlier… by trying to kill him.

Phil Collins vs. The Ultimate Warrior… with Vanessa Williams and Gilbert Gottfried.